"Let me try to piece this together," said Latham, pacing aimlessly in front of the window.
"You did say 'millions," am I right?"
"Indeed, yes."
"Did you spend any of it?"
"A great deal, moving in circles a directeur's salary could not permit, always getting closer, paying others who could be bought, learning more and more."
"A real solo operation. What's for who and what's for you and who's to tell."
"Unfortunately, that's quite accurate."
"But you told us," interrupted Karin.
"That has to mean something."
"You are not French, my dear. Instead, you are part of the secret movements, the covert operations no country cares to reveal, but which for the average citizen are filled with corruption."
"I don't think you're corrupt," stated Drew emphatically.
"I don't think so either," agreed Moreau, "but we both could be wrong. I have a wife and children, and before I subject them to the calumny of a disgraced husband and father-to say nothing of an unsanctioned firing squad or years in prison-I will flee with my millions and live comfortably wherever I wish in the world.
Remember, I am an experienced intelligence officer with talons everywhere. No, my friends, I've thought this out. I will survive, even if I fail. I owe it to my family."
"And if you do not fail?" asked Karin.
"Then every remaining sou will be turned over to the Quai d'Orsay, along with a complete accounting of every franc used in my solo operation."
"Then you're not going to fail," said Latham.
"We're not going to fail. Among other things, I haven't got any millions, I've got only a brother whose face was blown away, and Karin has a husband who was tortured to death. I don't know what your problem is, Moreau, and you won't tell us, but I have to assume it's as important to you as ours is to us."
"You may assume that."
"So I think we should go to work."
"With what, mon ami?"
"With our heads, our imaginations. It's all we've got."
"In death, his brother lives after him," said Karin, crossing to Drew and taking his hand.
"Let's go back to Tratipman and Kroeger and the second Mrs.
Courtland," said Latham, releasing Kgrin's hand and sitting down at the desk, impatiently opening a drawer and removing several pages of hotel stationery.
"A connection's going to be made, it has to be.
But how? The first assumption is your secretary, Claude, your Monique -whatever her name."
"Entirely possible. We can get her internal telephone calls;
they'll show us whom she reached."
"Also the calls she made at home-"
"Certainement. I can do that in minutes."
"Put 'em all together and confront her with them. Tell her she's expendable-put a gun to her head if you have to. If Sorenson's right, this Traupman has to ow what's going on, and she's the bitch who can tell him! Then we move on to that all-too-waffling scholar, Heinrich Kreitz, ambassador from Germany, and I don't give a damn if we put him into a tank until he sends out the alarms to Bonn."
"You move swiftly, my friend; you cut through diplomatic imperatives. It's attractive, but it could backfire on you. @5
"Fuck it! I'm impatient!"
The telephone rang. Moreau picked it up, identified himself, and listened. The muscles in his strong face fell; his flesh went pale.
"Merci," he said, hanging up.
"Another failure," he added, closing his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"Monique d'Agoste was beaten to death. Obviously, that's how the information of my whereabouts was extracted from her.. .. Where is our God?"
Vice President Howard Keller was five feet eight inches tall, but he gave the impression of being a much larger man. Many had remarked on this fact, but few had rendered a satisfactory explanation. Perhaps the closest was that of an aging New York choreographer who had observed the Vice President during one of those White House cultural evenings. He had whispered to a dancer, "Watch him. He's simply walking to a microphone to introduce someone, but watch him. He breaks the space in front of him, parting the air with his body.
Truman did that; it's a gift. A rooster in the barnyard."
Gift or rooster notwithstanding, Keller was a politician to be reckoned with, a Washington insider to the core, having spent four terms as a congressman and twelve years as a senator, rising to chair the powerful Finance Committee. He had weathered the Beltway's slings and deadly arrows, accepting the nomination for Vice President despite the fact that he was older and far wiser than his party's nominee for